Cloud 9… or 100.

A couple posts ago, I mentioned that I had written Dustin’s parents a letter (and in comments, mentioned that they did in fact pick it up).  I talked to a couple of my “Birth Mother” friends about my feelings regarding this letter.  I write to them often.  At least a few times a year, just to update what’s going on in my life and what not.  I write to them the way you would write to any friend that you don’t see regularly.  They know all about my family, my nieces and nephews, even some of my closest friends.  They know about the Birth Mother’s Group that I belong to and what I do to try to help fellow Birth Mother’s deal with their loss.  Writing to them is not an uncommon thing and seeing as how I’ve been writing them multiple letters a year for almost 10 years, it’s nothing out of the ordinary…  but this letter, that I sent on August 11th, felt different.  I really don’t know why, because it’s not like I said a whole lot more than what I usually say, but I had a really strong feeling that this letter would get a response.  I also mentioned that in this letter, I offered my email address.  Sometimes maybe it’s not foolish to believe in a feeling that strong.  Yesterday was a good day.

I always have my iPhone by my bed (that’s what I use as an alarm – Clock alarms?  Soooo 10 years ago HAHAHAHA) and I guess I kind of just do the same thing basically every morning.  I wake up and check my phone.  Sometimes I have texts from people that were sent after I went to sleep the night before, or occasionally a missed phone call (to which my response is always “WAS IT AN EMERGENCY!?  AGH!” lol) and then I check my email.  Anyone with an iPhone knows that when you have an email, you have notifications on your email “button” that says how many emails there are… mine ALWAYS says like 6 unread emails, or more.  Sometimes a dozen.  Keep in mind that I have THREE email accounts set up on my phone.  My personal, my “business” and my BirthMom Buds email (registrations, requests for technical help, requests for support, etc.) so it’s not new.  I always have my fair share of Junk Mail too, which sometimes I delete without even seeing what it is.  I can just tell.  Anyway, I’m babbling.  So I opened my email, went through each one, deleted the junk, la de da, and I see a name that jumps out to me.  “Geary”.  My phone previews the first line of the email, so I see “Hi Destiny.  This is Geary” and I BOLT upright (almost falling off my bed in the process) and I can’t even describe what my heart did at the moment.  Double summer-sault, triple flip, Stop in your tracks….?  I immediately started crying, then laughing, then shaking so badly I could barely tap the email to OPEN it (AGH, why won’t it open!??!!?) and laughing at myself for shaking so bad that I couldn’t open it LOL and of course all of this causes Gideon to JUMP up from his deep sleep and run over to my side of the bed, try to climb up, nudge me incessantly until I finally scratched his nose as fast as I could, took a deep breath and was able to open the email.  The email was short, but for all it did for my heart, it might as well have been 100 pages.  I laughed and cried and read it over and over and over… then immediately texted Heather, then my BirthMom friends; Michelle, and Marilee, and Coley, and… well, a few other people.  LOL

Even though it was short, it made me feel so much closer than I have been the past few years.  He told me that Dustin was on the honor roll last year and he loves sports and drawing.  He said that they talk to Dustin about me often and that he likes getting my letters.  He also mentioned that Dustin has trouble sitting still and is a little hyper (I couldn’t help but laugh – wonder who he gets that from?!)  Even just that tiny bit of information made me picture him so much clearer.  And KNOWING that Dustin knows who I am and that they talk about me takes a huge weight off of my shoulders.  I admit that I have never really been SURE that they tell him about me.  Some adoptive parents wait until the child is older to explain it, so I just didn’t know.  Knowing that he reads my letters and knows who I am… well, it’s an indescribable feeling.  I also know that he liked sports when he was really little, but I had no way of knowing if he still DID as a *almost* 10 year old.  Knowing things like that make things completely different.  It tells you a lot about a child if you know that they prefer reading or playing video games, or if they prefer sports, etc.  It really made me think of myself at that age and it makes me happy to know that we may have things in common.  (Although for his sake, I hope he didn’t inherit my A.D.D.)

I replied to the email and right now my biggest focus is not to get carried away.  LOL  I know that email is certainly faster, and Geary even mentioned it would be easier, but still… our agreement was once a year contact and I should not expect more than that, email or paper letter.

Everyone asked this, so I might as well add it 😛 but no, there were no pictures.  I’m SO happy about the email, not to mention how HUUUUUUGE of a step it is to start communicating via email (since that was NOT part of the original agreement) that I refuse to complain about what I didn’t get.  Also, photos were “mentioned”, so I admit I have reason to be hopeful that there may be photos in the near future.  They certainly didn’t say “NO” to the request for photos.  So, at this point I’m just floating in the joy of what I’ve learned about my baby and nothing in the world could bring me down right now!